Throughout the 1920s, Constance Talmadge was one of the queens of Hollywood, a top favorite of fans and critics alike. Sadly, she's been overlooked since then because her films are now hard to find. But this frisky comedy-romance shows her at her peak, in a story about a passionate reader of romance novels who has to choose between the man she married and a dashing adventurer. Written by Frances Marion. Transferred from an excellent fine-grain print in the Blackhawk Collection, this video features an original organ score by Bob Vaughn.

The title character of Dr. Jack is a small-town physician (Harold Lloyd) with a knack for nonmedical solutions-he cures one patient by giving him a saxophone, another with boxing lessons. When he tricks a big-city lawyer into visiting his sweet old mother and lifting her depression, the lawyer asks the good doctor to visit the daughter of an old and wealthy friend, a young girl whose malady is unspecified but provides a substantial income to a quack named Dr. von Saulsbourg. Naturally, when Dr. Jack and the girl meet, romantic sparks fly; but when they accidentally kiss, the girl's shocked father insists that Jack leave in the morning. With only one night to rescue his beloved from von Saulsbourg's clutches, Jack realizes that what she needs more than anything else is excitement-and to provide it, he disguises himself as an escaped convict, leading the household on a topsy-turvy chase through the mansion. Harold Lloyd doesn't have the balletic grace of Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton, but he's got his own understated charm and a knack for witty, inventive stunts. The accompanying short ("Number, Please?") may be even more fun than the main feature; Lloyd plays a brokenhearted guy trying to forget his troubles in an amusement park, where he runs into his former sweetheart and her new beau. Finding the girl's lost dog and stolen purse seems simple enough, but in Lloyd's world the simplest things produce the most astonishing complications. [+]

Fans of classic movie musicals will be in heaven with two five-video sets of the films of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, the quintessential dancing duo. Fred and Ginger weren't always stars-the former Broadway hoofer and studio chorus girl were cast as the second-tier "comic" couple in three of their early films (Flying Down to Rio, Roberta, Follow the Fleet), and the pace drags whenever they're not on the screen. The high points of the first set are The Gay Divorcee, which proved that the pair could carry a film, and Top Hat, generally considered their definitive movie. All the films mix light romantic comedy (usually centered around mistaken identities and ending, inevitably, in blissful wedding promises) with elegant dinner wear and surreal sets intended to transport '30s audiences away from the Depression to such locales as Rio, Paris, and Venice. But of course the real reason to watch these films is the sensational dancing set to great songs by the likes of Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and Jerome Kern, numbers that are not merely entertaining but also innovative for their time in that they reveal character and advance the plot. The quintessential romantic duet "Night and Day," the grand ensemble number "The Continental," the definitive tuxedo setting "Top Hat, White Tie, and Tails," the famously feathery "Cheek to Cheek," and the epic show-within-a-show "Let's Face the Music and Dance" are some of the best musical moments ever set to celluloid. -David Horiuchi This five-tape set includes Flying Down to Rio, The Gay Divorcee, Roberta, Top Hat, and Follow the Fleet.

Priscilla Dean is feeling unwanted by her husband and hires Stan Laurel as her paramour to make her husband jealous. Unfortunately for Stan, the couple's butler, Oliver Hardy, takes an immediate dislike to the dimwitted rival, making his life miserable.